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<h2>Should adoptive parents of internationally-adopted children search
and open adoptions?</h2>
<img id="sidepics" src="../images/sidepics.jpg" alt="happy children">

<p>by Jane Brown</p>

<p>Many who have adopted internationally at least flirt with the idea of
searching for additional information about their child's early history
before adoption and/or for their child's birth family. Is this
appropriate? If and when adoptive families are able to obtain
identifying information, should they move forward to actually contact
birth parents? What are the outcomes-- predictable or not-- for all of
the players who are involved (birth parents, adoptive parents,
non-adopted siblings in each family, and for the young adoptee)? Is open
adoption different in international adoption than it is in domestic
adoption?</p>

<p>Much of what guides my thinking comes from the following sources:
adult adoptees and birth parents who have connected with each other
after the adoptees reached the age of majority, adoptive families who
have been involved in domestic open adoption and others involved in
international open adoptions, conversations with adoptive parents who
are considering searching, direct work with adopted youngsters who speak
of their thoughts/feelings/fantasies about their birth families, and my
own personal experiences as an adoptive mother involved in two open,
international adoptions with three of our nine children (who are now
adults). I have had the pleasure and challenge of learning the ropes of
negotiating open adoptions without benefit of a model, since our initial
meetings with birth families occurred over twenty years ago at a time
when the term "open" adoption had not yet been coined and no one we knew
had ever entered into an open relationship between birth parents,
adoptees, and adoptive parents. We proceeded on instinct, emotion, and
guesses. Our path led us to make mistakes, but to also come upon
sensible, helpful, constructive ways to meet the challenges. Never,
though, have we found it easy, uncomplicated, a complete "fix" for
adoption losses, or a straightforward path. My opinion is that this is
always the case-- open adoption leads to a very complex set of
ever-unfolding, never entirely predictable, not always positive
relationships, sometimes very wonderful relationships and opportunities
for personal growth amongst the various players in the adoption triad.</p>

<p>From my observations and experiences, international open adoptions
are distinctly different from domestic open adoptions for many reasons.
Language and culture is an enormous barrier in most cases. When
translators interpret questions, comments, and the expression of
feelings, they can not get it absolutely accurately and completely-- and
all parties have difficult feelings that occur as a result that
reverberate long after the infrequent and all-too-short meetings. Did
the interpreter leave things out? Did he decide to soften words or
expressed feelings? Did he grasp the importance of interpreting my
question/answer as accurately as possible? Did he put his own spin on
what was said because of his biases or misconceptions about adoptive
relationships? Cultural nuances are critical. How one interacts
politely-- from giving/receiving gifts, making eye contact or not,
defining what personal space is appropriate, to understanding how family
dynamics normally work in the other's culture-- these things shape the
relationships that start up and evolve. They shape expectations,
behavior, and interpretation of reactions to words and behavior. At THE
most emotionally-loaded moments in the lives of adoptees, adoptive
parents, and birth parents, language barriers and cultural differences
get magnified to enormous proportions.</p>

<p>Who should engage in search and how far, if at all, is it all right
for adoptive parents to go in searching for their children? There is
great controversy surrounding the question of who has the right to
search. Many internationally adopted adult adoptees, adoptive parents of
mature families, and adoption professionals believe that only the
adoptees, themselves, should search-- even for information that could
later hasten a reunion or make successful connections more probable.
Why? They point out that two more losses occur when adoptive parents
search FOR their adopted child. Yet there is a flip side to this
argument, too, that I'll discuss later.</p>

<p>The first is loss of control over the decision and timing of a
search. In adoption, every player experiences great loss of control and
the feelings that tend to accompany that. Adoptees grow to know that
others made life-altering decisions for them that sometimes work out
well, sometimes do not. Birth parents, social workers, judges, foster
parents, adoptive parents make decisions which profoundly affected who
they became and how they see themselves. These are things that
non-adopted persons do not experience and set them apart from most
others. They, like the other players in the adoption triad, tend to want
and need to regain as much control as possible in their lives and so,
tend to deeply resent that others would take from them this last bit of
control over the decision to search or not.</p>

<p>The second is loss of how the search is conducted and the time table
along which the search proceeds which, say adult adoptees and many
professionals, is important to adoptees in terms of identity
development. Many to most adult adoptees who search stop and start a
multitude of times-- not because they are stumped by what to do next,
but because they make a series of decisions as to whether to continue on
with their search. Some obtain information on paper and then decide for
a period of time or permanently to stop there. Others stop and then
later decide that they want and need more. Some decide that they don't
want to complete their search to the point of actually meeting with
birth family members. Some want only to meet with birth siblings. Some
agree to meet only with their birth mothers, others go on from there
some time later to meet their birth fathers, if the birth parents don't
live together. Each search is unique not only in how it ends up, but in
how it proceeds to whatever conclusion it comes to. When adoptive
parents take over and direct that process, the adoptee does not get to
make the decisions and does not get to process and come to terms with
what is occurring at his or her own pace. Many feel sure that how the
search evolves is as important and life-shaping as whether or not birth
parents are ultimately found and met.</p>

<p>Some adoptive parents and adoption professionals state concerns that
if adoptive parents let the trail go cold, the information they might be
able to obtain NOW could be lost forever or become extremely difficult
for their child to retrieve years later. Orphanages close or burn down.
Foster parents move or die. Caregivers who found, cared for, and knew
the child don't stay on forever. Paper documents and notes may be
deliberately or inadvertently lost or destroyed. These are the type of
scenarios adoptive parents worry may happen. They wonder whether their
sons and daughters may find fault with their decision to not try to find
and keep as much information as they possibly can while it is still
available and may be accessible.</p>

<p>One other decision that adoptees make for themselves when they are

the ones who search and locate birth parents is how many meetings they
are willing to have, how often they have contact, what is shared during
those meetings or phonecalls or in letters. They develop their own set
of expectations that usually shift and change as they get to know more
about their birth family. They also get to learn about and decide how to
respond to the birth parents' expectations. One adult adoptees tells
that after finding her birth mother, the birth mother expects her to
come to visit and spend holidays with her. That is very far from what
the adoptee wants or needs as she feels that she already has a family
and was not looking for a new "mommy." She would prefer to have a much
more limited set of contacts and to gradually decide for herself how
much of her life she wants to share.</p>

<p>When adoptive parents conduct not only the search process, but then
arrange for subsequent contacts between themselves and the birth family,
the adoptee, again, loses any degree of choice and control. While some
adoptive parents say that they involve their son or daughter in
decisions, they may be unaware that their child may feel an enormous
amount of pressure to live up to their expectations and those of his/her
birth family rather than be able to say what he/she really would prefer
to have happen.</p>

<p>Another potential problem in open adoptions is that all parties-- the
birth parents, the adoptive parents, and the adoptees enter into an open
relationship with needs, fantasies, beliefs, and expectation. Sometimes
these are in conflict. When adoptive parents have a great need to
express their gratitude to birth parents for providing, in their eyes,
the opportunity for them to be parenting the child they love and act on
that need by going overboard to shower the birth parents with kind words
and gifts, the child's needs may get lost in the shuffle. Adoptees may
also feel gratitude to their birth parents and may come to develop
empathy for what they experienced in relinquishing their child. At the
same time, however, they may need to work out feelings of anger that the
birth parents made the decisions that they did. They may struggle with
feelings of shame over having been born to parents who couldn't or
didn't raise their "own" child-- in the words of Society.</p>

<p>Sometimes birth parents are thrilled to see the child they decided
not to raise and enter into the relationship with gusto, but later need
to pull away when their expectations are not being met or their own
feelings become too overwhelming. They may decide not to see or write to
or receive calls from the adoptive parents or adopted child--
temporarily, for an extended period of time, or permanently. This loss
is usually even more devastating and intense than the first one was. It
is difficult enough for an adult adoptee to accept his or her birth
parents' decision to stop communicating. It is that much more difficult
and undermining for that to happen to a child or youth.</p>

<p>Not all birth parents are happy to be found and contacted. Some
refuse to write or see the child they relinquished or to even give over
information that the adoptive parents would like to have. They may not
be willing to give even medical history when a child is desperately in
need of that type of information. Then, young adoptees experience
increased feelings of having been rejected. This, too, is devastating
for children who may then begin to see themselves as being flawed and/or
unlovable.</p>

<p>When adoptees and adoptive parents begin to search with the goal of
establishing a one-time meeting or a long-term relationship with birth
parents, they need to be prepared for all sorts of unpredictable
outcomes. They may learn information that is painful, startling, and
confusing or undermining to the adoptee's sense of self. One family
learned that the birth mother had tried to murder the child. Another
that the birth mother had relinquished in order to try to protect
herself and the child from an abusive husband-- the one she still lives
with. One family learned that one of the birth parents had been
incarcerated, another that a birth parent lives in a mental health
hospital. Adults have a tough time accepting that this is a part of
their backround. Children, who have not even made the conscious choice
to obtain information struggle even more mightily with receiving
backround history of this type. Sometimes, too, what is learned is
inconclusive. If the alleged birth parents are unwilling to agree to DNA
testing, the resulting mystery can be very tough for an adoptee to live
with. It is a huge responsibility for adoptive parents to make these
decisions for their children.</p>

<p>When adoptions are open, the adopted child is often not the only
child who is affected by what evolves in the relationships that are
established. There are often other children in the adoptive family and
still others in the birth parents' families. It is important that
relationships between/amongst siblings be respected, validated, and
supported. This is sometimes difficult when grown-ups weight different
types of sibling relationships differently. For example, sometimes birth
parents believe that the only sibling relationships that are authentic
are those between siblings who are genetically related. Adoptive parents
may refer to the relationships amongst the children in their families as
'real' while discounting those that an adopted child has with his or her
biological siblings. This can sometimes cause complications at best,
major problems that escalate over time at worst.</p>

<p>Even when the outcome is very positive, the real challenge is to
figure out how to live with the fact that the adoption is now open. When
adoptions are open ones in the U.S., it is relatively easy and
inexpensive to conduct an ongoing relationship. There can usually be
regular and sometimes even frequent face-to-face visits that can be
arranged. When families must travel to another country, arrange for
interpreters to translate even a simple letter, and bear the financial
burden, conducing an open adoption is very different. The child, birth
parents, and adoptive family may realize that they could benefit from
regular visits, but not be able to make that happen. A one- or two-time
visit may leave everyone feeling very unfinished-- with a child having
difficulty understanding why his/her parents won't go back every month
or every summer. Birth parents can make unrealistic requests-- for a
child to come alone and stay with them for a period of weeks or months
or for a holiday. They may ask the adoptive family to provide financial
assistance for another child. They may want more than the adoptive
family is willing and comfortable with providing. While adoptive
families and birth parents here in the U.S. may have access to
counseling to help them deal with the issues and feelings that surface
in open adoptions, birth families in other countries may not have the
money or available resources to obtain that. Another obstacle is often
the way that culture looks at going after mental health support
services.</p>

<p>Adopted children grow up, of course! If they are involved in an open
adoption, at some point they will probably expect and demand that their
adoptive parents back away from the relationship and contacts that are
taking place between them and their birth family members. This can be
very difficult for adoptive parents who may then feel threatened,
jealous, unneeded, worried, concerned about things that they are seeing
that they think are destructive, and left out. When one adds language
and cultural differences into the mix, things often get quite
complicated and can be extremely upsetting and comfortable for all
involved. Adoptive parents who seek to open their child's adoption must
be ready and willing for this-- and committed to evolving healthy
communication and relationships as they go-- usually with the help of
therapist. They must know, however, that birth family members will
probably NOT have those same types of supports and opportunities to
receive psychological help so that they can continue to act in the
child's best interests.</p>

<p>On the other hand, many families tell us that they have wonderful,
growth-producing, expansive experiences with opening an international
adoption. Many relate stories about how their child blossoms as he or
she finds answers to questions that would otherwise have been left to
the realm of the unknown. Many adoptive parents and birth parents
establish close relationships and embrace each others' role in the life
of their shared son or daughter. Many tell us that while the
relationships are ever-changing, complicated, and never easy to keep on
an even keel, they would not have it any other way!</p>

<p>Only a very few adult adoptees have been a part of open or semi-open
international adoptions. That means that there is little for current
families to be able to look at to know whether this is typically a
positive or destructive path to take. Families who decide to search for
and make contact with birth parents have to accept that they are taking
risks and probably cannot anticipate the problems or joys that may lie
ahead. They have no way to assess how their children may, at some point
in the future, criticize or thank them for moving ahead into unchartered
territory.</p>

<p>Our own open adoptions came as surprises after we received our
children. (We have two). We adopted two older children who came with a
small backpack loaded with photos, letters, addresses, and phone
numbers-- information that normally would never have been allowed to be
sent or delivered. I took the information with me on a trip to escort
other adopted children from Korea to the United States and showed it to
an American nun who worked for years with Amerasian children in Korea.
Without asking for my permission, she picked up the phone and CALLED the
birth family! Before I knew what was happening, she was arranging for a
meeting between me and members of the birth family. So began our open
relationship that has been ongoing now, for many years.</p>

<p>Our other open adoption evolved because we brought a teenage girl
into our home who possessed memories, memorized phone numbers and
addresses for her birth mother in Korea, and had the address of her
American birth father without our even knowing that she had these
things. She corresponded with and called her birth mother on a regular
basis right from the start and visited with her birth mother in Korea
several times. Her birth mother eventually moved to the U.S. and is now
a regular and cherished part of all of our lives. (That does NOT mean
that we never felt or feel jealous, threatened, upset, confused, etc...
or that the relationships have been uncomplicated or always
comfortable). The relationship with her birth father started when she
decided to write to him-- without our knowlege or permission. Suddenly,
we received an unexpected phone call and were off and running with an
open adoption on that end, too. Adoptive parents don't always get to
choose-- sometimes open adoptions arise without their having made the
decision to enter into these complex arrangements.</p>

<p>The other aspect of searching for birth families that parents need to
consider is how they or their child might be taken advantage of and how
their actions might impact adoption of children in their child's
country-of-origin. Both of these are serious matters to consider. There
are many people who would eagerly profess to search and could then offer
up information or possible birth family members for a fee. There
motives, their honesty, their ability to really gather any information
would be difficult for an adoptive family to assess. The repercussions
in the villages, towns, cities, and governments that adopted children
have come from are impossible to anticipate. Sometimes the result has
been that governments tighten the reins on allowing anyone to have
access to any information-- something that adult adoptees really fear.
Sometimes new regulations or restrictions are put into place that slow
down the adoption process of children and adopting parents. Sometimes,
if adoptive parents bungle these investigations and cause hurt,
adoptions are stopped all together. Sometimes searches result in a
complicated and ugly battle over custody of a child that impedes
adoption and/or the ability of others to engage in searches. All of
these things should be considered before a family arrogantly starts to
search without doing so carefully and sensitively with professional
guidance and assistance.</p>

<p>No one should or can tell what is right or best for each individual
adoption triad (comprised of birth parents, adoptive parents, and
child/children). We will learn more as we are able to watch the very few
open adoptions that have evolved. Few of the children who have been
involved have reached adulthood and we have not yet heard much, if
anything, from birth family members or adoptive parents of what they
think and how openness has affected their lives. What we can tell
adoptive parents is to think about all of this VERY carefully, to seek
professional counsel so as to determine whether it is their child's or
their own needs that they are seeking to meet by searching on behalf of
a pre-adult adopted son or daughter, and to know what the pitfalls could
be. These are not decisions that should be made casually, hastily, or
without the advice of a knowlegable adoption therapist.</p>

<p>Few of us in the international adoption community can envision what
the Future may hold in terms of our ability to search and find birth
families. Years ago, we told almost every family that finding birth
families was Mission Impossible-- yet today, adoptees or birth parents
are initiating the process of search in many countries throughout the
world and are finding each other. Sometimes it is the adoptees who go
looking in their countries-of-origin. Sometimes it is the reverse with
birth parents traveling to or emigrating into the U.S. and initiating
the search process from their end. Those who search and think that they
have found each other are verifying their genetic connections through
DNA testing. In the Future, as technology makes it increasingly possible
for genetic connections to be accurately and quickly determined, contact
between adopted persons and the birth parents who gave them their start
in life will probably increase dramatically. These are important matters
for adoptive parents to consider and begin to talk over with their
children as they grow. It will be a delicate balance between preserving
hope and optimism that many things will be possible for many that may
not be now, while helping adopted youngsters accept the reality that
this will likely not be possible for all in terms of identifying and
verifying their history before adoption.</p>

<p>Jane Brown M.S.W.</p>
<p>Go back to the <a href="index.htm">Jane Brown archive</a>.</p>

<p class="fineprint">Jane Brown is both an adoption social
worker/educator and an adoptive &amp; foster mother of nine children,
some of whom are now grown. She lives and works in Arizona. She serves
on the editorial board of Adoptive Families Magazine and writes a
regular parenting column for the publication. She is the creator of
Adoptive Playshops which is a series of workshops for adopted children
age five+, their non-adopted siblings, and adoptive parents in which
children are helped through playful, multisensory activities to explore
growing up in an adoptive family and racial identity, plus develop
skills for dealing with societal attitudes and beliefs about adoption
and includes helping children resist and confront racism and bullying.
She can be reached at: janebrown77@earthlink.net or at: (602) 690-5338.</p>
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